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Whats that button do?
Things had finally settled a bit more the next day. Doc was being sequestered in med bay, Dimitri had stopped trying to blow up the ship in favor of his finally finished … Vas actually didn’t know what was in the jar but all the men except Vas seemed excited over it. Maybe it was some kind of bathtub hooch? For the young punk, however, there was no shortage of work. Other than looking like a hoarder had been living on the ship it had barely been manageable before but after being tossed over … well … his name was being called on a lot plus there was a lot of tripping going on. The upside was Vas had found a stack of Chinese romance novels! When his shift finally ended the punk, worn out from a day of lifting and carrying, wander up to the bridge and knocked on the frame. He knew better than to just walk in if he valued his manhood. Riley had barely heard footsteps against the stairs, meaning when she turned she knew not to expect the captain. A scowl instantly formed between her eyebrows as she turned to face the interloper. Expecting Gill with a tirade about his sister, she quirked an eyebrow seeing it was actually Jat, the one deckhand she had that actually earned his paycheck. She found this surprising because a) he was usually working, and b) he was well aware of her stance regarding crew in the cockpit. “What?” She asked sharply. “Evening Lieutenant.” Vas said politely. “I had a quick question for ya if don’t mind?” “You’re already here, so ask.” “I was wondering, when you have the time, if you could show me around the cockpit and help me understand all them intimidating dials and knobs. Last time I stepped in a cockpit didn’t know my elbow from my asshole. So I couldn’t figure out my situation aside from waiting to get my damsel like ass rescued.” Vas explained simply and to the point. “You still don’t know your elbow from your asshole when it comes to the bridge.” But she could see where he was coming from. He’d been in a situation over his head, and there wasn’t a much worse feeling than the feeling of being helpless. She drummed her fingertips on the arm of the chair mulling it over. “Is all your shit done?” “Are you kidding have you not seen the hallway? My work is never done!” Vas said with a playful grin. “But yea at least until my next shift.” He confirmed, Vas wouldn’t have approached while on the clock so he was on his own time right now. Riley let out an exasperated sigh. “Sit.” She told him, nodding towards the second seat. “And don’t touch anything.” Vas was less irritating than most other people on the ship, so if she had to tolerate someone being on the bridge, there were worse choices than the rooster-haired kid. Vas perked at how well his request being taken. He walked over and took a seat. Riley didn’t have to worry about him touch anything all the unlabeled light and gauges allowed his imagination to wonder all the awful things they each meant or did. If anything Vas was trained to be a good student, which was first and foremost to speak only when spoken to and do exactly what you were told when you were told. He momentarily mused if flying this ship was like defusing a bomb. It felt like that at the moment. Riley pointed to two of the gages. “This is your right and left engine. Right now we near have them redlined. You won’t do that. Ever.” She looked over to see if he was actually paying attention, Satisfied that he was, she continued. “You’ll want to keep them here, midway. That’s your engineer’s job, making sure that they’re running to capacity. Got that so far?” So far so good. Riley was still making sense. “Never redline, keep it midway.” He repeated with a nod. Vas would have added a joke in there but he thought better of it, else might she kick him out for not being serious. So far so good! “Good. Put these on.” She handed the punk a second headset. “You don’t need them, not with today’s equipment, but it helps keep your head in the game. If you ever fly this ship, you’ll use them. This is only a short hop, three days, but we’re at full burn, so you want to keep an eye here, your fuel cell capacity,” she pointed to another set of gages. “Without this, you’re pretty much dead in the water, your best chance to survive would be pirates assuming they don’t kill you first. So it’s important to keep an eye on that too. Now, what is it you remember went wrong on the Clover?” “Well … “ Vas said trying to recall the frosted over board. “... we had some power assume since I saw that light blinking.” He pointed. “He was full and the engine was out, of course,” Vas recalled eyes drifting over the board. “ … that light was on and this one was red, not green.” He was sure might of been missing something but hypoxia could muddle thing up a bit. Hopefully, it was enough for the Lieutenant to dissect. “This one being on means there’s a pressurization problem in the cabin - you’re losing pressure. In the case of the Clover, it was because there was a giant hole in the hull. If that happened here, I’d try to seal off that section as best as possible, That’ll keep the rest of the crew breathing at least. See these over here? You can use these to seal sections of the ship if need be. Sucks if you’re in one of those sections, but the survival of the rest of the crew could be at stake.” Vas nodded. “Yea the door was jammed shut, probably help keep me alive. Heat was out too.” He recalled, at least if something like that happened again he knew how to make the situation better for himself and anyone if he found himself stranded in the cockpit! Hopefully never but you never know out the black. Riley nodded. “Were the control panels iced? We’ve run as low as 10 degrees Celsius when we needed to. You start to ice over -- you’re actually pretty lucky you were raided. Anyway, Firefly class isn’t that hard to figure out. Here’s your speed, your thrusters, she’s VTOL, so you can adjust them vertical, horizontal, ailerons for left, right. Move them the opposite way you want to go. This here is our course. She’ll practically fly herself to it. Your job is mostly to make sure nothing goes wrong along the way. Rogue asteroids, comets, undocumented ships, some big lug brewing weird shit in your engine room, out of control kid chewing through wires, stuff like that.” “Captain said the Clover had an explosion from inside the cargo bay, right below the cockpit, caused the whole ship to depressurize. Firefly class, that wouldn’t happen. My best guess is whatever happened on your old ship was because someone made it happen. I highly doubt you were that someone, so whatever happened? You don’t have to worry. It ain’t gonna happen here.” “Yea … I remember going to the cockpit and the ship rocking so hard the grav drive I think konked out, I remember hitting the ceiling pretty hard and then I guess the grav drive kick back in. I hit the floor and it went all black.” The punk explained quietly. It wasn’t exactly a fond memory. He didn’t know if the crew abandoned ship without him because they had to or if they even got rescued or were just out there … floating. “Anyway, yea by the time I came to the board was looking frosty. So yea you guys came at just the right time.” Vas chuckled a bit remembering the captain coming to the rescue. “To be fair I was bit delirious but I thought you all was a buncha pirates at first … I was glad the gun was empty, don’t think anyone would have taken it kindly if I took a pot shot at ‘em.” Riley held out her hand to make a so-so gesture at the word ‘pirates.’ “Keller can’t shoot for shit when he’s sober.” She told him with a shrug, “I think you’d have been safe, but he mighta taken it personal. I’d have shot you. See that dial to your left? Give me about half a klick turn on that.“ “I woulda shot me too.” Vas admitted with a broad grin. “Yes, Lieutenant.” He perked following the order and giving a half tick to the requested knob. “Either way … glad I made in one piece … she’s a good ship.” He said with a wistfulness to his tone. ’Good crew too … for the most part. “She’s a great ship.” Riley corrected. “And for what it’s worth, the Captain is glad you weren’t blown to shit too. Compartment over there to your left, second down, you’ll find a manual detailing the ship nuances. Specs and stuff. You know what the first thing they teach you in the academy about flying is? How to crash. Everything you learn from that point forward is how to prevent that from happening. You take the time to learn what the main controls are called at least? IF all your shit is done, I’ll let you fly ‘er.” “Can we skip the learning to crash part?” Vas asked fishing out the manual. “And go right to the preventing crashes instead?” He said opening the manual to its introduction page. “Absolutely. I think it’s a great idea to find out if you remember everything you need to when in an actual life-or-death situation rather than condition yourself ahead of time so panic doesn’t set in, don’t you? Go read. It’s better than those trashy Chinese novels. See what you can remember before we leave Valentine.” She paused for a moment before kicking him off the bridge. “How’s the kid?” Vas went red in the ears. He had no clue how she had caught him reading them, how else was he supposed to learn about romance and stuff! Not like they made a gorram manual! “Yes, Lieutenant.” Vas said clearing his throat. Great Buddha the crew might never let him live it down if they caught him with a Chinese romance novel. “Shankey? She’ll live to stab another day.” Vas assured Riley happy to change subjects. “She’s at the age, still cute a fluffy like a puppy. Givin those shiny red boots Doc got her and the new set of boots for half pint ... I say he might be taking a shine to the pair. Lyen naturally seems to also be taking a shine but she’s a full-on Buddhist Nun so what don’t they take a shine to when it’s small and cute ya know?” Riley stopped listening after the word ‘live.’ These people wouldn’t last a Gorram day in the academy giving shit reports like that. “And Adler?” She flicked her eyes in his direction to get a read on the situation. “Doc is out of danger. He walked me n’ Lyen through it, got all the bone fragment out and field patched him. He’s resting, his eye is safe for now. Doc ‘ll be even better once we get him a proper doctor on Valintine.” Vas reported flipping the page of the manual. “Good.” She let out an internal sigh of relief in both cases, then swung her gaze towards Jat once again. “You planning on reading that here?” Vas perked. “No Lieutenant! Sorry Lieutenant!” He said jumping to his feet. “Thank you Lieutenant.” He added before making himself scarce and leaving the Lieutenant to her well-deserved solitude.